A Single Pair of Skeletons
by LivinJgrl123
Summary: A story about the nobody from the third episode of the first season. *COMPLETE*
1. (author's note)

**I don't own anything except what you don't recognize. I know the nameless stranger who sort of/not really helped Kim and Janet get away from their kidnappers in S1—E3 (he got SIX MINUTES of screen time - I checked!) is a nobody, but to me his character is _significant_. Don't ask me why. Please. The chapters are going to be _purposefully_ short, and I'm writing this merely to satisfy my need to write about pre-existing characters. So, with that out of the way...**

**Cheers, yeah?**


	2. When It's Dark Outside

It's always dark out when he comes out of his space. Well, it's either completely dark, or dusk - or dawn. But you never see him out in the day. No, at night is when all the people come out of their shells to play, to show who they really are. He knows this. He knows it well. And he likes it when people show their _real_ selves. People don't show their real selves during the day. They force themselves to be people they're not. They smile, they're polite, they're kind - but it's an act. Not for everyone, because some people always show their true selves, no matter the time of day, and even fewer have true selves that are desirable to be around.

He doesn't have to pretend to be anyone, because he is how he is all the time, but he admits, sitting alone in his place - his _space _ - that sometimes people are more bearable during the day, when they have no other choice, than to pretend to be something they're not.

He gets more money for his cravings during the day. During the day, everyone looks out for one another - at least, everyone who's pretending, and the few who actually _care_, but he hasn't seen anyone genuinely caring for a couple of months now.

During the night, though, it's everyone for himself.

He should know.

He's lived here, in this place - _his_ space - long enough to know this.

It still makes him angry, though. Because people shouldn't pretend. He gets sick of their pretending, real fast.

But that's what the night is for.

Right?


	3. Bits And Pieces

He's been living in this space since he was fourteen. Years later, though, he barely remembers the reason why he is here in the first place. It could have been because of his heroin addiction - his cravings. It could have been something about a family he barely even remembers existed - a father who drank himself to the brink of becoming comatose every night, a mother who had been dead to him since he had been small, an older, successful sister who'd forgotten about him as soon as she had turned eighteen and skipped town while he, at age seven, had been left with people who didn't care for him.

He's been alone now for as long as he can remembers. It's like a dream, what things had been like before this place - _his space _- and he likes the fact that when gets high, he doesn't remember a thing. It's not even a dream, then, anymore. It's just a nice, blank _nothing,_ save for the high of the heroin that always seems to end a tad too quickly, in his opinion.

He remembers bits and pieces, sometimes, when he's lurking about in the shadows. The bits and pieces become chunks, though, when he ventures towards something that will remind him of what it was like before - before he had been _gone_, and had found this place. So that's why he never ventures far from his place, _his space_, because if he does, he'll remember - or he'll end up dead.

He'd rather not. He'd _really_ rather not.

He'll settle for the bits and pieces, until he gets his high.


	4. They Take And Take And Take

After he meets those two girls in the alley, he's convinced that a lot more people need to keep pretending to be nice, tolerable people, even at night - even though he can't stand people who pretend. And after they come into his space and _pester him_ about their misfortunes, he really wishes that rich girls like them would keep up their charades. But even though he was annoyed with them, it's not like he doesn't care. Too bad for them, for getting kidnapped, and that one girl, getting her arm broken - too bad. See? He's not heartless.

He's just not compassionate about strangers trying to get _him_ to help them when _they_ ruined something for him. Especially when one of the said strangers kept pestering him about a phone. Had he looked like he was going to help them? He'd saved them, from those two boys - easily, but it had cost him fifty bucks. He's not selfless by any means, and it's like more privileged people forget that they can't have everything - especially when they ask something of someone who's a _lot less _fortunate then they are. Like him.

If those girls had been pretending, he might not be so angry. But he is, and he wishes that some people really didn't think that they were so above everyone else - because he knows his worth and that's why he's glad he's not nice, to strangers, to anyone, honestly. He'll take what he's got and he'll keep it, when everyone else will just want to take and take and take and never give back.

He's sick of everyone pretending, and he's sick of people when they're not. He's bitter all the way to the core because of the way the world wronged him, because of the way he'd _helped_ the world wrong him back when he had been fourteen. People are fully aware of people who are like him. Everyone knows this, but most of them don't care. In fact, he's sure that if he meets someone who actually cares about him, he'll be high. Or dreaming. But not dead. Because he's sure Heaven's something like this place.

He swears, though, that when he meets one person, one person that doesn't pretend to be anyone - someone who's mask-less - and is _tolerable_, he'll try not to scare them away.

He swears it.


	5. His Foul, Bitter Skeleton

He has bitter bones.

He knows that he's young, that his bones are strong, but his skeleton - it's made up of bitter bones. Down, down, down, all the way to his core, he is so bitter, distrusting, and _foul_. He hasn't been content, or happy for a long time. He might have forgotten what _that's_ like though. He hasn't felt the need to even _try_ to be in a good mood, because, what's the point? He lives in a tiny space, he pretty much lives on the street - his family never cared, and he barely remembers what happened last month - and he knows it's the addiction that makes him forget, makes everything fuzzy and unfamiliar and _disconcerting_ but that doesn't really mean _anything_ to him. He's a junkie, a druggie, an addict - however you want to phrase it. And it's all helped him grow from a savage, bitter, somewhat damaged fourteen-year-old into an older boy, who's just a bit more bitter, a bit more crude, a bit more foul. He's not any more hurt or damaged since he left home - or had home left him? - but he hasn't changed for the best.

Sometimes, when he's high, like he is now, wandering back to his space while subconsciously sticking to the shadows, he thinks of people in terms of skeletons. Each person has one, he knows - under all those organs, under all that blood and skin - and therefore, everyone is a skeleton. A walking corpse that's still breathing, still functioning - and it doesn't matter if they're pretending to be decent or not; every body is still a body with a brain, a beating heart, with blood running through the veins - and maybe drugs, but perhaps, for the moment, that's just him.

He finds, as he nears the warehouse in which his space is located, that every skeleton he sees comes in a pair - no matter who the two are, there are always two. It makes him want to have another skeleton, another set of bones with him, because he admits he gets lonely, and he doesn't want to die a lonely skeleton.

No, he decides, as his high is slowly drained away by the night air, that won't die at all. After all, skeletons come in pairs. It happens, eventually, even if one body is alone - even if they're only one heart, one brain, one set of bones. Eventually, the other half to the pair comes along, and then they are one of the many pairs of skeletons.

But he wonders if his bitter set of bones is going to meet another set of bones, which will bit up with how bitter, distrusting, and foul he is. Skeletons do that sort of thing, don't they? When they belong with each other - for whatever reason that might be - they put up with each other's countless flaws and countable strengths or strong points.

He doubts it, though, and that sobers him up as he ducks under the flap towards his space, before the first light of dawn can claw up Los Angeles' night sky.

Maybe his bitter bones are supposed to be alone.

That happens, too.

. . . right?


	6. A Set Of Bones, Just Like Him

It's barely even midnight, and it's December. He loves it when the temperatures drop low enough at night for him to actually be sort of chilled. Los Angeles, for him, sometimes becomes unbearable due to the heat of California, but it's not like he can get his shit together and move someplace up north, maybe in Idaho or Washington or hell, he'd move to Canada, so he has to stay where he is, and wait for night to come around so he can cool off.

He's wandering around, his eyes alert, his pupils dilated as his high finally wears off, and his cravings are satisfied for the time being. He's not very far from his space, but he's farther than he usually goes. Familiar faces of strangers he's never seen before pass him by without even glancing at him; the same people come out at night; those who pretend throw away their masks as the sun sinks below the horizon scurry about in the dark, being who they _truly_ are, until the sun rises again, and then they put the masks back on, and then the world is left with a bunch of liars milling about in it as daylight reigns, till the sun sinks again.

He looks around, and for some _unfathomable _reason, his eyes spot a small figure sprinting towards him, with every intent of going past him, and he halts, and his eyes lazily lock onto her, because she's still far, and he can see, with the aid of the street lamp above him, that she's huffing and puffing as she draws closer and closer to him.

He's morbidly curious about most things at best, and he has yet to find a reason that this curiosity in watching the girl go is morbid. But it will be, and his mind suddenly flashes to the fact that she's by herself, and no one's going after her. His eyes narrow, and his lips curl up into a sneer as he realizes that she's just like him, but he's not running from something that's not following him. She looks like the devil is after her, with dirt smudged on her face, with her wide eyes, with the smear of blood that goes from her cheek down to her collar bone, and he sees that her ratty, long-sleeved t-shirt is soaked where the trail of blood ends.

As she gets closer, and more details are evident, his eyes light up, and his lips twist into something bitter, something _foul_ - something resentful, as he realizes that she really is _just like him_. She's a skeleton, by herself.

He can't help but hope that she doesn't find the other half of the pair she's supposed to be a part of, because he doesn't really want to be the only lonely skeleton walking about the streets. And he knows he must be, but this girl - it looks like she doesn't live any place he would deem lucky, or nice, or anything.

For some reason, he wants to meet this lonely skeleton, but does nothing as she runs past him -

And she trips, not meters from him, and scrambles to her feet. He knows her palms hit the ground before her knees did. The holes in her jeans and the heels of her palms will probably be stained with blood, much like the blood that is on her neck and face and soaking into her shirt still.

He steps forward, towards her, and her head whips around. Her eyes meet his, and the twisted formation of his lips fade into an expression of surprise. Her eyes are big, reflective, and frantic. Her chest heaves up and down, and he thinks that if he's not mistaken, she hasn't been breathing properly while she ran. Only people who've been running for too long have torsos whose chests heave like this - like they were being choked, and now they're gasping in every breath they possibly can.

And as she holds his gaze, steadily, even though she's shaking quite badly, and looking like she's about to collapse, he knows.

He suddenly _knows_, without even saying anything to her, that she's just another skeleton, one without the pair that he should have.

He sneers, and turns away, taking his leave. He can feel her eyes boring into the back of his skull, of his bones, and he winces, but he still walks away from her.

She won't see any comfort from him.

He doesn't care.

He _doesn't care._

He refuses to.


	7. She's A Skeleton, Who Has It Worse

To his surprise, the girl follows him. For some unfathomable, unknown reason, she chooses to pick herself up as he leaves her to bleed on her on, and she _follows_ him. Aggravation soon follows surprise, and eventually he is forced to duck into alleyways and around corners till he's certain he's lost her. He sees his building, the one that houses his space, and even though it's not even one in the morning, he feels like turning in early might be a good idea.

But then he hears a girl call out, somewhere far behind, and he whirls around, a scowl curling his lips in disdain as he sees that the same girl from before is indeed running towards him, and when she halts a few feet in front of him, her body heaving from the effort to keep moving, despite how obviously exhausted she was, and he has to give her points for determination.

"Wait . . . up . . . " she manages to gasp out in between harsh intakes of breath, her hands clutching her stomach like she's about to be sick, and he takes a step back, just in case she is. He studies the bones in her face, of her fingers, of her arms - because she's so _fucking thin_, and he can see the bones jutting out from under her skin, and she looks like she's not supposed to be this skinny, this malnourished, this _unhealthy_. It looks wrong, how angular her features are, and he thinks, if she was more fortunate than he, that she would probably wouldn't look like a half-starved dog left out in the road to die.

He can really see her skeleton - in her face, in her hands, in her body, and he knows immediately that she's worse off than he is, because even though his clothes are too small, and he's not really living in a place - just a space, with knickknacks and broken odds and ends that are his, that he's collected since he was fourteen - and he's able to get himself what he needs for his cravings, and he actually _eats_ twice a day - but this lonely set of bones, this lonely skeleton is worse off, even more so than he, but he doesn't feel any pity for her. He only stares, and waits for her to do something, or say something, but she's just bent over, her breathing becoming less harsh and more normal.

Eventually, she straightens up, and he wants to laugh, because she's actually taller than he expected her to be. She's only an inch or so shorter than he, and he nearly does laugh, because she's such a sight, with blood on her, with her messy, wild mane of hair that probably needs to be shaved or cut off, with the state that she is in.

It's comical, but he can't laugh.

He only waits.

"I . . . " she suddenly looks embarrassed, and when she glances around for a second, before meeting his eyes, and he realizes quickly that she probably has no idea why she followed him all the way here, so close to his place, his space._  
_

"What's your name?" she blurts out, and he watches as her arms drag themselves away from her stomach - to only return seconds later, and she winces. And his eyes suddenly go upward, just a bit, to her side, he examines the rise and fall of her chest -

She's probably cracked a rib.

But he says nothing, and only quirks an eyebrow at her. She doesn't have anything on him that he would want - his eyes had scanned her quickly enough to deduce that much when she had nearly collapsed in front of him. He's actually amused by this fellow, lonely skeleton.

He distantly wonders what her bones are like - if they're bitter, just like his are, if they're something else - something worse, or something better.

When he doesn't reply, she blurts out again - like her words have minds of their own, and they just spring from her bloody lips whenever and however they please - in a manner that only amuses him further. He hasn't felt amused in a long, long time.

He suddenly feels sobered, and his mind goes to the bones again as she speaks - because he's missing the other half to his pair of bones, and she obviously is, too, or else she wouldn't have chased him all the way here - so far from where he'd see her fall onto the sidewalk.

"My name is Reese."

He blinks, and he responds, much to his - and her own - surprise.

He hasn't told anyone his name in years.

He hasn't spoken to anyone out of choice since he left his home.

"Blake."

She brightens a bit, and he becomes suspicious.

This skeleton is definitely an odd, lonely skeleton.

He still finds, seconds later, that he's still amused.

_Dammit._


	8. Her Bones Are Familiar

For some reason, he doesn't get rid of her when she follows him. It's become regular, after that one night. She follows, she finds him, somehow, even though he doesn't know where she goes when she's not busy finding him, and, not that he cares, but it's odd, how she always appears most nights out of the week, sometimes a bit bloody, sometimes a tad bit bruised, other times she is limping, and he never asks why.

For some reason, he lets her go with him, whether if it's to get his high, or to get some food - anything. It doesn't matter. She sticks with him, and he never asks why. Well, not until a week or two has passed, and then he asks her why she chose to stick with him. Because he never offered any help. He never bothered with her existence, and when he did, it was only to observe her - to make himself feel better, to assure himself that he wasn't the only lonely set of bones out in the world left, because everyone had someone, no matter what position they had in their life.

And when she tells him she doesn't know, he takes it as a sign.

He tries to get her to leave. But that doesn't work. She only goes to his place, his space, during the day, and he spends his time cursing himself for even allowing her to know where he lives - but at the same time, he has to be honest with himself, because if he's not, then he's going to end up pretending, just like everyone else - everyone but her. He likes that she doesn't pretend, even though he knows little about her.

He can honestly tell himself as he watches her come and go with a sneer on his face that he's secretly _not un__happy_ about her sticking around. She makes good company, but she's not a friend. She doesn't speak much, but when she does, she awkwardly blurts something out, and it always makes him amused. When he gets high, he starts to think of her, and he smiles and smirks and laughs when he's high, when he's by himself on his mattress, _in his space_, because she's kinder than most people, and he's positive that she has no mask to wear whatsoever, even though sometimes he thinks she tries to pretend - but she's miserable at that, and he tells her that, eventually, in all honesty, and she's confused, but still nods and says she'll do her worst.


	9. Lovely And Bitter Bones

Slowly, months drag by, and he thinks that she's implanted herself within his space permanently. He's yelled at her to get out before, because he doesn't want her to know what he's laughing at when he's high, but she goes, and then she comes back, hours later, to stay, and tells him that he's just going to have to deal with her like he deals with the rest of the shit in his life.

He tells her he's not going to do that, and she asks why.

He tells her that she's a skeleton, and she blanches, not knowing how to respond. And then he slowly explains it to her, completely sober, completely serious, about skeletons, that every set of bones in a body of skin and blood is a part of pair, whether people like it or not.

And then he tells her that he's a skeleton on his own, and she is, too - and there's nothng either of them can do to change that. That's when she tells him, in a way that makes it seem like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and this time, it's his turn to blank when she speaks:

"You've got me, I've got you."

Then his eyes narrow, and he tells her she's wrong - and then she proceeds to start a list on why he might tolerate her more than any else, and when she's finished, her eyes bright, but tired, he nods.

He tells her she's right.

And then he tells her that they're a pair of skeletons, and he's actually relieved that she _finally_ understand what he's been talking about. They are a single pair of skeletons, the two of them, and his bitter bones have found company after all.

She tells him that it's a bit creepy, how he sees things, but she understands. Sort of. She understands everything excepts for the part about his bitter bones.

"It's easy to understand," he tells her.

Shaking her head from side to side firmly, she tells him that he's wrong.

Then he tells her that her bones aren't bitter. Her bones are lovely.

She blanches, not for the last time, and asks if he's serious. Her bones are not lovely, she tells him, but he merely shrugs.

"You can't be bitter, too," he tells her.

"And mine . . . "

It's amusing, how he can see the way everything clicks together inside her head. It shows on her face.

"You're bones are lovely."

And he ends that discussion by telling her that he's right, and that there is now way she can convince him otherwise.

Unlike most times, though, she doesn't get the last word it.

She doesn't deny him of his accusations, about her bones.

Because he _knows_ that they're true.

It seems to him, now, that his bitter bones willy have company.

The bitter and the lovely bones, then.

He likes the sound of that.


End file.
